THEDRUNKENMUNKEY
Biryani Breakfast Bowl
Our chicken biryani taken to breakfast — crisp onions, fresh herbs, a fried egg on top
from the kitchen
The Biryani Breakfast Bowl is Arun Mirchandani’s own adaptation of a classic dish, put on the brunch card so the kitchen could serve a biryani in the morning. It runs Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 am to 3:30 pm on the weekend brunch menu: our chicken biryani taken to breakfast, crisp onions and fresh herbs through it, a fried egg set on top and toast alongside. A vegetarian version is available. It is not a family recipe, and it does not pretend to be.
The reason for it is plain. The à la carte biryanis do not cross over to the brunch service, and a biryani was wanted on the card anyway, so Arun adapted one: the same spicing and the same rice, served in a bowl, with the egg and the toast that belong to a morning table. The adaptation is small, and it is his. The family recipes on this menu are elsewhere, Mum’s Lemon Daal among them.
Sunday, in much of India
Across much of India the weekend breakfast is a full-scale affair, and rice dishes belong to the morning every bit as much as to the evening. The idea that breakfast should be small and sweet is a fairly local one, and India has never been especially persuaded by it.
The cooking behind it is worth setting out. The biryanis on the à la carte menu are dum-cooked: rice and whole spices layered into a pot, the lid sealed shut with dough, and the whole thing baked so that nothing escapes until the seal is broken. The Chicken Biryani page sets the method out at length. The brunch bowl takes that spicing and that rice into the morning — chicken, crisp onions and herbs through it, the egg on top. Brunch is the service that suits it: the tables are longer, the morning is slower, and nobody is waiting for your table at the far end of the room.
When to come
Come early in service if you want the room quiet, or late if you would rather the morning turned into an afternoon. It is worth knowing that brunch is a weekend service only: Monday to Friday we open at 4:00 pm, so a Wednesday craving has to wait for the weekend.
It sits on the menu alongside the Splendid Short Ribs Benedict and the Bombay Berry French Toast, which tells you most of what you need to know about a weekend here. One dish from the Old Bombay end of the kitchen, two from somewhere else entirely, all landing on the same table at the same time.
Dietary & spice
The bowl is chicken, and a vegetarian version is available. It is crowned with a fried egg. Our printed allergy menu covers the à la carte dishes; the brunch menu is not on that sheet, so tell your server about an allergy — egg included — before you order, and the kitchen will confirm the plate against it. There is more on that on our questions page.